Pacquiao in denial about loss to Mayweather

By Boxing News - 09/08/2016 - Comments

Image: Pacquiao in denial about loss to Mayweather

By Chris Williams After almost a year and half since his one-sided 12 round unanimous decision loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr., former eight division world champion Manny Pacquiao still thinks he did enough to win their fight in May 2015 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. The three judges felt differently than Pacquiao in scoring the fight 118-110, 116-112, andn116-112, all for Mayweather.

The boxing world and the large crowd at the MGM Grand felt comfortable with the decision, as there was no complaining afterwards. The only complaining there was from the angry fans resulted from Pacquiao (58-6-2, 38 KOs) revealing that he had taken the fight with an injured right shoulder.

The boxing fans that paid to see the fight felt angry about it, as they had paid a lot of money to see the match and they expected Pacquiao to be 100 percent for the fight.

“I have had trouble with the shoulder since 2009,” Manny said to Fox Sports. “Training for the Mayweather fight, we pushed hard. I felt like I had no [right] arm in the fight. I threw a lot more punches than him and I thought I did more than he did. But like I said, I know how to accept loss and I respect the decision of the judges. In my heart, if you ask me, of course I still believe I won the fight.”

So, Pacquiao says he accepts his loss and respects the decision of the judges, and yet in his next breath, he’s saying he still thinks he won the fight. It’s pretty laughable if you ask me.

What doesn’t make sense is for Pacquiao to be still talking about the Mayweather fight. You’d think by now that he would have gotten over the loss and owned the defeat. It’s already old history. Pacquiao needs to accept that he had his chance against Mayweather and he lost. That’s it. There are no second chances against Mayweather. When you fight the star and lose, it’s over with. In hindsight, Pacquiao should have canceled the Mayweather fight last year and had surgery on his shoulder rather than taking the fight with his shoulder injured. At least if Pacquiao had his shoulder fixed, he wouldn’t have to wonder what the fight would have been like if he was 100 percent.

I don’t think Mayweather intends on coming out of retirement to give Pacquiao a rematch. Mayweather is happy with his career, and he has no interest in coming back to fight the Filipino star. In the past, Mayweather was smart to wait until 2015 before making the fight with Pacquiao. He made more money by waiting. Never the less, Mayweather isn’t going that route again by not making the rematch. Mayweather simply doesn’t have any interest in fighting Pacquiao a second time.

Pacquiao was beaten to the punch all night long by Mayweather. The only time it was competitive was early in the fight when Mayweather eased off for a few rounds. Once Mayweather got serious in the ring, he outclassed Pacquiao the rest of the way from rounds five though twelve. The fight was so one-sided that it was boring in the eyes of many boxing fans. I wasn’t bored, but a lot of fans were because they expected Pacquiao to make a fight of it.

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If Pacquiao wants a big mega-fight, then he needs to look to fight Saul Canelo Alvarez or Gennady Golovkin if he doesn’t get beaten on Saturday night by Kell Brook. Pacquiao has two big fights he can take right there if his promoter Bob Arum lets him fight either of those guys. I doubt that Arum will make those fights. Pacquiao will likely spend the remainder of what’s left of his career fighting Arum’s Top Rank stable fighters rather than the popular guys that would make him a ton of money.

Pacquiao will be fighting on November 5 against Top Rank fighter Jessie Vargas at the Thomas & Mack Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The fight will be shown on pay-per-view, but it’s unclear who will show it. HBO is said to have passed on the idea of televising the fight. The fight hasn’t attracted much interest from the boxing world, and it appears that it was a really bad idea for Pacquiao to take this fight.

Pacquiao should have insisted on fighting a star or at least someone that the casual boxing fans career to see. Pacquiao’s fight against Jessie Vargas has not created a lot of news. It’s seen as a mismatch, largely because of how badly Vargas looked in his loss to Tim Bradley last year. It’s hard to believe that there wasn’t someone more popular than Vargas for Pacquiao to fight for his November 5 date.